You Should Watch Last Chance U Season Two, Even If You Didn't See the First

If you watched Season 1 of Netflix's Last Chance U, you know that the Eastern Mississippi Community College (EMCC) Lions were always going to win the 2015 NJCAA national championship. They won in 2011, 2013, and 2014. The foregone conclusion that they'd win their third straight was likely part of the reason the show—based off a GQ story—was green lit in the first place. Except (spoiler) they didn't win. After a bench-clearing brawl in the final game of the season, all of the players involved were handed a two-game suspension. And since "all of the players involved in the brawl" fell (mostly) into the large umbrella of "all of the players on the team," the #1 seed and prohibitive favorite in the junior college playoffs was forced to watch their season whimper out with a first round forfeit.

This adds a layer of drama to an already dramatic show, whose second season just landed on Netflix today. The show's cast includes main character holdovers (football coach Buddy Stephens, matron saint and players' academic advisor Brittany Wagner), familiar faces in brighter spotlights (standout running back Isaiah Wright), and an entirely new cast of players. The second episode of the season features a scene with two of them, roommates Kam Carter (who will prove to be one of the coaches' biggest headaches in this second season) and Chauncey Rivers. Chauncey is confronting Kam about stealing all of his snacks, and some of his tank tops, too. It's funny if tense, and Wagner has to step in to say, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it," to which Kam replies: "The moral of this story is... Chauncey's a bitch."

It's the show in a nutshell: a bunch of boys being boys in a way that's entertaining and often endearing; but the happy-go-lucky nature of those interactions is buttressed by the knowledge that for many of these guys, this is what the show's title says it is, and if they don't find a way to succeed in the frameworks Coach Stephens and Ms. Brittany put in place, they may find themselves out of options. Which is not to say that this is your typical, black-and-white underdog story. It's complicated by complex characters who aren't always easy to root for—Coach Stephens drew public ire of many last year for the way he acted in Season 1; this year's quarterback is De'Andre Johnson, who was cut from Florida State after he punched a woman in the face at a Tallahassee bar. An easy and obvious comparison for the show is HBO's Hard Knocks, but while both are beautifully-shot, documentary-style football shows, Hard Knocks lacks the gravity weighing on the players in Last Chance U—and as such, isn't as compelling.

The best stories take you into a world. Director Greg Whiteley does that by working the texture of Scooba, Mississippi into every shot—the wide-open highways and sizzling hot football fields; players spitting dip in team meetings and guys named Bubba—bringing you into the orbit of the EMCC Lions, whose success you quickly become invested in. The players know what's on the line: that a productive season and good grades can be the difference between a division one scholarship and anonymity. But there's a sense this year that, given how the last one ended, the school does, too. The stakes are as high as they've ever been—turns out that makes for pretty damn good TV.

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